The Nature of the Beast
For a moment he looked like a man possessed. And then it passed, and faded, until Armand Gamache looked simply haunted. Silence settled over the bookstore, except for the jingle of Henri’s collar as he stepped beside Armand, and leaned against his leg.
“I’m sorry,” said Armand, rubbing his forehead and giving them a feeble smile. “Forgive me.” He took Reine-Marie’s hand and squeezed it.
“I understand,” she said, though she knew she didn’t really. The Fleming case was the only one Armand never talked to her about, though she’d followed it in the media.
“The sooner we tell Antoinette we’re out, the better,” said Gabri. “I have some cleaning up to do at the bistro. Why don’t I come by in about an hour and pick you up, Myrna? We can drive over together.”
Myrna agreed. Gabri left, followed by Clara, waving good-bye with her book.
“I’m heading over to the general store,” said Reine-Marie, leaving Armand and Henri in the bookstore.
Myrna settled into her chair and looked at Armand, who’d taken the armchair vacated by Gabri.
“Do you want to talk some more about the play?” she asked.
“God no,” he said.
She was about to ask why he was there, but stopped herself. Instead she asked, “What do you know that we don’t?”
It was a while before he answered.
“You have experience with the criminally insane,” he said, kneading Henri’s enormous ears and looking at the groaning shepherd as he spoke. But then he looked up and Myrna saw sorrow in Armand’s deep brown eyes. Genuine pain.
He held on to the dog as though to a life raft after the ship had sunk.
Myrna nodded. “I had my own private practice but I also worked part-time at the penitentiary, as you know.”
“Did you ever work at the Special Handling Unit?” he asked.
“The SHU? For the worst offenders?” asked Myrna. “I was asked to take on some cases there. I went there once, but didn’t get out of my car.”
“Why not?”
She opened her mouth, then shut it again, gathering her thoughts. Trying to find words to express what was not, in fact, a thought at all.
“You know the term ‘godforsaken’?”
He nodded.
“That’s why. I sat in the parking lot of the SHU, staring at those walls.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t go inside that godforsaken place.”
Both of them could see that building, a terrible monolith rising out of the ground.
“You continued counseling prisoners at the other penitentiaries,” he said. “Murderers, rapists. But you stopped eventually and came here. Why?”
“Because it was too much. It wasn’t their failure, it was mine. They were too damaged. I couldn’t help them.”
“Maybe some can’t be repaired because they were never damaged,” he suggested.
Through the window he could see splashes of astonishing color in the forest that covered the mountains. The maple and oak and apple trees turning. Preparing. That was where the fall began. High up. And then it descended, until it reached them in the valley. The fall was, of course, inevitable. He could see it coming.
“Coffee?” he said, hauling himself out of the chair and stepping over Henri.
“Please.”
As he poured he spoke. “John Fleming was arrested and tried eighteen years ago.”
“Crimes like those don’t fade, do they?” said Myrna, taking the mug and finishing his thought. “Do you know him?”
“I followed the case,” said Gamache, retaking his seat. “He committed his crimes in New Brunswick, but he was tried here because it was felt he couldn’t get a fair trial there.”
“I remember. Is he still here?”
Gamache nodded. “At the Special Handling Unit.”
“That’s why you asked me about the SHU?”
Gamache nodded.
“Is he getting help?” Myrna asked.
“He’s beyond help.”
“Believe me, I’m not saying he’d ever be a model citizen,” said Myrna. “I’m not saying I’d ever trust him with a child of mine—”
It was subtle, but Myrna, who knew every line of Armand’s face, was sure she saw a movement. A flinch.
“—but he’s a human being and he must be in torment, to have done those things. It’s possible, with time and therapy, he can be helped. Not released. But helped to release some of his demons.”
“John Fleming will never get better,” Gamache said, his voice low. “And believe me, we don’t want his demons released.”